I have no confirmation of this yet, but I was informed by Amr Gharbeia that the blogging Judge is suing the government to get them to block 21 websites, some of which include the blogs of Gharbeia and Bent Masreya and the websites of HRInfo and Kefaya. The official reason behind his lawsuit is that those websites defame Egypt, but the real reason might be a bit different. Amr had discoverd that the man had plagarized almost 1/3 of his book's content from his website and others, which, surprise surprise, include Bent Masreya and HR Info. Here is HR Info's campaign against the man for plagarizing. The man seems to be taregting websites that exposed his plagarism. There is nothing so far about this alleged law suit. However, the moment I get confirmation I will let you know.

Update: Confirmation was obtained from the head of HR Info. The story goes something like this: Judge Mourad didn't like the websites exposing his plagarism, so in order to sielnec or bargain with them, he filed a lawsuit accusing them of extorting him by spreading false claims about his plagarism. He did that thinking that the websites and blogs would budge, but they didn't, so now , as a back up plan, he is filing a lawsuit demanding that the government shuts them down because they "defame Egypt". This is why he added a bunch of websites like Kefaya and Yehia Megahed's blog to the list. I have no idea who the other 16 websites are and neither does anyone else at the moment. But once we get them, it will be clear who else he is targeting. I don't think this blog is on that list, but I am still waiting for confirmation!

dick

The Jut

March 9, 2007 at 5:41 pm

This is madness! Can’t he be reported to the police for this, or is that out of the question? It’s clever enough to throw in organisations that annoy the government. That way “everybody” will be happy.

Interesting things to note. On the one hand they talk about “double speak” (they say that the men were sending very different messages in Arabic media vs on English media), but on the other hand they also say “perceived un-Australian viewpoints” (why PERCEIVED? Likening a woman to raw meat is not TRULY un-Australian?). And finally, they don’t simply fire these guys. Why not? I mean, justifying RAPE? Would you want such a man to be the spiritual counsellor to your teen-aged kids? Why are these guys not simply fired?

seneca

March 10, 2007 at 12:06 pm

yes, Zvi, I noticed what you said.

But it is so rare that Muslims do publicly anything that may seem critical– or could be interpreted as against (let alone something that clearly is)– a Koran demanded stance that such actions, as feeble as they are, should be praised. They are too scared and too submissive in general when religion is the topic, similar to a boy who avoids to show anger and assertiveness in the presence of his father, regardless of what may be the target of that anger. Look at the ‘character’, not at the details, in such cases.

I say more power to them, however contradictory are yet their actions.

John Cunningham

Michele

March 14, 2007 at 5:36 am

Recently, in Canada, a young girl was expelled (right word?) from a soccer game for wearing the hijab as it violated the rules. The Egyptian government issued some official commentary/criticism of this. The National Post (a national newspaper in Canada) responded with an editorial pointing out the hippocracy of this given the conviction of Kareem Amer for expressing an opinion.

Mahmoud El-Saeed, ambassador of Egypt to Canada, Ottawa sent a letter to the editor in response. You can read it at

Basically, he assures everyone that Egypt is a free and democratic nation and that “there is zero tolerance for fanaticism or extremism.” In fact, “in Egypt, insult to any monotheistic religion is against the law.”

Have any islamist extremists promoting death to all jews ever been charged in Egypt? Does this man seriously think that everyone believes his lies?

I guess that we’re all just supposed to feel better given his assurances.
Some days I just want to scream at the world to wake up.